If this is the time when his brain wants him to learn and repeat, we’re going to start learning poems – real ones. This morning I got him started on To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, 
    Old time is still a-flying : 
And this same flower that smiles to-day 
    To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

We’re working on the first stanza now. I may not be able to sneak veggies in well, but this little scream machine is going to be a Toast Master.

by Christine S. Lucas

Published April 20, 2013 in the Savannah Morning News

I am not a control-freak, but I have taken great comfort in my ability to soothe my son’s heart. I kiss boo-boos, fix food, wash and entertain him, but we finally reached something I couldn’t make better.

The saga began when I showed up at day care to learn that Elliot had “graduated” from his day care class. It seems a mother complained that he was hitting her little girl, and so my son graduated from a teacher he loved and children he’d been around since he was 8 months old. If he graduated, then his diploma must have read, “Suck it.” These were my thoughts as I went to fetch him from his new digs in the other wing.

It isn’t standard procedure for parents to be notified when a child progresses from one class to another, but Elliot was moved because of a complaint. Parents were, I imagine, kept from communicating because of the instinct to defend one’s own.

My issue is that one mother understandably expresses a problem, and her opinion is given complete weight enough to remove another child from class. Her point is taken into consideration, but it is done so while leaving another mother completely out of the loop. The end does not justify the means.

The reaction the day care staff expected, I came to resent this week. I have tried to remain positive that he has moved to a room that is good for him. His teacher is great, and he’s not languishing throughout the day. Now, however, for the first time he doesn’t want to go to school. At night he requests his old class before bed. He talks about it on the toilet, at the breakfast table, on the car ride, and mama can’t make it better. Only time will do that.

The hitting that prompted his being yanked has not continued at all in his current class. Not once. He’s learning new songs, keeping his Pull-ups in good shape, and he’s even been invited to a birthday party. The heartbreak that I couldn’t fix is starting to mend. What is replacing it, however, slowly, is a sense of pride in himself. It’s the first time he’s really had to test his coping skills, and I think he’s managing better than his mother.

The lesson of late has been learning when to hold back. The world is not a satin pillow on which my beloved can sit forever. At the park, I have to let him be his own protector sometimes.

A 6-year-old boy says “baby alert” at the approach of my child who only wants to play. On a cellular and energetic level I want to put that crummy loser in a half-nelson and make him eat monkey balls (from Sycamore trees). I can’t though, and Elliot learns to stand his ground — something very unbaby-like!

I also have to learn that Elliot can act a fool and it doesn’t reflect on me. When he furrows his brow at another child, I want to correct him. I don’t want kids to hate him. I want them to think he’s the lovable spec of God dust that happened to land before them. He’s a spirited spec, and he wants to get his way. Be compassionate. There I go trying to put him back on the pillow again. It’s so hard not to be protective.

In the constant comparison between working and nonworking mothers, this is where extra time benefits the parent. In the course of your day you see your child interact with more children. You learn whether his behavior is a one-time thing or a habit that needs more diligent correcting. When to intervene is probably the question parents ask themselves most often, and I doubt it’s going to get any easier.

At first I just wanted to keep him alive. Now he’s supposed to be a pleasure to be around, too? He’s supposed to be law-abiding and respectful? I’m going to need your help world. Be good to him, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.

I’ll try and have faith that good people will find him and good things will happen for him. It reminds me of a new ditty Elliot has been practicing of late. In his 3-year-old speech, it sounds like, “God our fodder. God our fodder.” When things we can’t control happen, we have to see the blessings among them. One is the smile that comes across my face when Elliot ends his religious tune saying, “Awwww, man.”

Christine Lucas writes about being a first-time mom and adventures with baby. Contact Christine at christineslucas@yahoo.com.

We couldn’t sell it! For what seemed like forever, it sat in our driveway mirroring the guilt I felt for our not being able to revitalize it in the way we’d imagined. My son grew to know it has a play house where we’d sit in the afternoons. He was quite fond of it and listened while I spoke of a woman named LaVerne who had taken me for rides so many years before. It was the car we road in to Happy Harry’s Discount Drugs on Main Street in Newark, Delaware. My blanket had faded to a dull gray, and Nanna bought a magic potion that would turn it the rosiest of pinks.

I remember looking up at her in the driver’s seat. The edges of the memory are blurred. I think she had a scarf wrapped around her hair. There were sunglasses, and the world would have caved in upon her without fresh lipstick. My little boy didn’t know about that woman. He didn’t know about her heart, but he loved the knobs on her car’s radio. He loved the wheel and the lever that slid across turn to the air conditioner on.

We finally sold the Galaxie for fifty dollars less than my grandmother originally paid for it. We sold it to a charity called Limos 4 Kids. They take sick children for very special rides, and the Galaxie was going to have a new life as a Barney Fife squad car. (Click here to find the ’65 Ford Galaxie in the slide show.)

Elliot proudly showed the car off when the man and his wife came to pick it up.

We brought out the photo I’d taken of Nanna sitting on the hood. It was Easter Sunday and she was eighty years old at the time.

Then we said good-bye.

It was a little sad, but Nanna wasn’t in the car. I think she was smiling beside us in the driveway. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf. Her sunglasses were on, and her lipstick was flawless. I can almost hear her saying, “Tsk, tsk. Why in the world did you bring that thing all the way to Georgia?” It was a bridge, I’d tell her. One that we just found our way across.

This lion was pithed thanks to Phil Sellers at Old City Walks tours.

I was delighted to do the Back Story Tour this morning. Martha and her grand-daughter Delaney were lovely gals who didn’t let the weather scare them off. Savannah is a city full of layers, and the challenge as a guide is to work your way through all of them. I am by no means saying I’m there yet, but it’s an exciting process. I figure when I run out of stories, I’ll just start inserting sitcom plots. That way on Trip Advisor someone will say, “Uh, that story about Oglethorpe meeting a hispanic  dancer was an episode of the Love Boat, and I don’t recall any of the Trustees being named Chachi.”

Norah Ephron’s Final Act

By JACOB BERNSTEIN

Published in the New York Times

March 6, 2013

Published March 9, 2102; Savannah Morning News

Does your child like writing? Have you asked? There are ways to tell whether you have a future Nora Ephron or Dan Brown on your hands.

The first time I was told to read to Elliot, we were still in the hospital. I was ravenous and began with the menu, “Once upon a time there were four, no five, slices of french toast and three plump sausages.”

Since that time we have been filling his brain with stories like Violet the Pilot, The Library Lion, and QuickBooks for Dummies. I look forward to a time in the future when he can string sentences together. If literacy is a coin, writing is the b side. There are ways you can encourage it in your children.

We know how to say, “Tell me about your picture.” Most parents are good at seeing a child’s promise in the visual arts. Writing talent is harder to spot early on. It’s less of a show pony. Wyman Bailey is a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Oglethorpe Charter School. His mom, Carol Bailey, says his talent started simply. He left his mother notes around the house.

“Well, he would tell me something he wanted to do,” Bailey says. “He would want to go to the mall, and then he would tell me all of the reasons he needed these things.”

An ordinary list written by your child is a window with an excellent view, but parents must not overlook it. For example, it tells you whether your child can spell. It tells you about the dying art of penmanship. Let’s also remember the effort. Writing a list means: This is important enough for me to take the time to put it on paper.

Last year Wyman started taking creative writing workshops with the local nonprofit called Deep. These workshops take place after school in over 17 different locations around Savannah and are taught by volunteer writing fellows. Donations enable the work of these kids to be professionally published and sold.

The story Wyman wrote for Deep is about a boy’s first kiss.

“It was really descriptive,” Wyman’s mother remembers. “I remember the girl had hair the color of lemonade and cotton candy lips.”

Was this nonfiction? Bailey suspects it was, but she admits she is not sure. “That’s when I figured out that the stuff he’s writing about, he’s thinking about. It’s stuff he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about.”

Writers are notoriously insecure about their writing, so count yourself lucky if your child shares a poem, story, or sentence. Choose your response carefully as well. You’re not an editor at The New Yorker. Your first response should not be to spell check or monitor punctuation. What if your child writes something shocking? Well, it might happen. Nail him to the wall, however, and you’ll no longer have a window seat. The view inside will be boarded up just like that. Wouldn’t it be better to draw more out and learn what’s cooking?

Wyman enjoys writing short stories that, according to his mom, are about three or four pages long. He has fun with it.

“I like to write, because it brings my entire imagination out,” he says. “It inspires me to do it again and again.” His story backdrops have included everything from the jungle to the sea. He has recently done one about two friends living in a concentration camp. “I also like to write because it usually is a way I get to tell people what’s going on in my head.” Wyman also says he loves the support he gets from the volunteers at Deep.

The fridge is good for drawing out all of the writers in your family. Magnetic Poetry is a company out of Minneapolis that makes all sorts of word magnets. In the Kids section of their website, magneticpoetry.com, you can try it out. The owner, not surprisingly, is a writer named Dave Kapell who was suffering from that viper bite known as writer’s block. He wrote down words on little pieces of paper to come up with song lyrics. The trouble was that he’d sneeze and blow away song after song. Magnets were his answer and might be yours too.

Start your own poem now: left, inside, lawnmower, shamrock, presentation, angry, founded, treats, dog, floated, sky, Susan Catron, urged, the, that, dug, stung, Oglethorpe, grommets, dentist, faxed, sprouted, duck, recycled, Pad Thai, Savannah, rabbit, don’t, at, what, sagos, plunge, mole bait, deflected, sunburnt, tabby, spirit, around, butter.

I should have known, because today I was restless during his nap time. Should I meditate and then fall asleep after only balancing my three lower chakras? Should I read something useful? Should I take the movie back to Red Box? It was a cereal aisle of indecision. Should I eat cereal maybe?

The door opens and he’s got poo-poo. I stay positive, because he is serenading me with the song I began singing him at birth. I’m not proud, but here goes:  Let’s take the dookie from your diaper. Let’s take the mushy from your tushy. Let’s make your bootie feel better. Let’s make it not smell like cheddar. Then you improv with a little let’s take the dookie, let’s take dookie, let’s take the dookie.

I send him back to bed and fetch my laptop. Maybe I’ll write that masterpiece now.

The door opens and he comes back out,

Me: Elliot, it’s nap time. Go back to bed.

Elliot: No, I can’t because it’s time for oatmeal.

Me: No, it’s not. (Dad chimes in) Elliot go back to bed.

Elliot: Okay. (starts closing the hallway door.) I miss you, mama.

Me: I miss you too. Go to bed.

(From inside his room) Elliot: lalabla.

Me: Elliot go to sleep.

Elliot: What you say?

Me: Elliot Grissom go to sleep!

Elliot: What are you doing, mama?

Me: Waiting for you to go to sleep?

Elliot: What’s daddy doing?

Me: Waiting for you to go to sleep.

(Door opens to his bedroom and the hallway)

Elliot: What you say about me?

Me: Nothing. Go to sleep or no party (he has two birthdays).

Elliot: I miss you, mama.

BOTTOM LINE: KID IS OUT OF BED AND NOW I CAN’T WRITE THIS BLOG! GOD!!!!!!!

I’m back, and now I feel bad because he made me laugh then I yelled at him to get back in bed. Now he’s saying he had a bad dream, but he hasn’t fallen asleep. These two hours were going to be the time I buckled down, the time I wrote something or aligned myself with my soul purpose, or organized my fridge. Oh, gosh, these two hours I took for granted. Like my twenties they went by so fast.

Elliot:I had a bad dream.

Me: Go to sleep.

Elliot: Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

(Shhhhh. The WHY phase. GD it came so fast. I knew it was coming. I never read any books. Wasn’t there a brochure or something I tucked under the bed? No, that explains toxic shock syndrome. Grrrrrr.)

Elliot: I hurt myself. I have a boo-boo.

Me: (Not buying it and looking at his exposed elbow.)

Elliot’s brow is furrowed. It really hurts he tries to say. I feel like I’m trying to hide a fart in church. I can’t help but smile. Then the giggle rises and I bury my face into the side of a nearby cat to stop him from seeing.

Me: Go back to bed. It’s quiet time.

Happy Sunday!